Shepherds Farmhouse

HAUGHLEY SHEPHERDS LANE TM 05 NW

6/117 Shepherds Farmhouse -

-- II

Former farmhouse; a late C15 3-cell open hall house whose parlour cell was rebuilt in mid C16 together with other alterations. 2 storeys, with attic above the parlour cell. Timber-framed and plastered. Thatched roof, hipped at the right hand (service) end. Axial chimney, the shaft rebuilt in late C19 red brick with gault brick quoins. A C19 eyebrow casement dormer. Mainly C19 small-pane casements. Late C20 gabled plaintiled entrance porch with framed and boarded door. The 2-bay open hall has an open truss with a rather slender tie-beam and shallow 4-centred arch-braces of a type suggesting a possible early C16 date. Smoke-blackened coupled-rafter roof. A blocked rear cross- entry doorway with 4-centred arched head, and two mutilated service room doorways. The service cell has a diamond-mullioned window and studwork with long windbraces, of arch-form in side walls and of tension-form at the end. At the upper end the partition wall is greatly altered but there is evidence for an early or original smoke bay. Circa 1550 alterations were carried out with good quality carpentry: an inserted upper floor with roll-moulded joists and multiple roll-moulded main beams in the hall. A pair of wide open fireplaces in narrow buff brick, and in the hall a cambered lintel. The parlour cell has good close studding, a similar moulded 1st floor, and a window with roll-and-cavetto mouldings. Clasped-purlin roof. Associated, it is believed, with Alice Rayner in 1557 and remaining in her family until c.1640.

Listing NGR: TM0342259968